dad jokes //// sulay

twenty-six

"and this is leon. he's pretty... introverted," junmyeon said, introducing yixing to his little cousin. he was fourteen.

"hi there, what're you reading?" yixing asked.

"to kill a mockingbird," leon responded.

"he likes books. doesn't talk much unless you know how to decipher nerd talk," junmyeon said. yixing shrugged.

"he seems like a cool little dude," yixing said, "and i do know how to decipher nerd talk."

"of course you do," junmyeon smiled, "alright, well, good luck with him. i'll call you in when the food is ready."

"hey, little dude, can i sit next here with you?" yixing asked leon, who was casually sitting down on the patio floor.

"wouldn't you rather socialize with the other children who don't spend their time memorizing pages of books?" leon asked, "did my mom ask you to come talk to me?"

"yeah, she did," yixing shrugged, seeing no point in lying, "but no, i wouldn't rather spend time with the other kids who don't spent their time memorizing pages of books. i'd rather spend time with me. so, can i sit?"

"if a card disappears in a deck and no one notices, does it mean that card never existed to begin with?"

"if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it ever really fall?" yixing asked, "one could argue that if no one noticed, the tree had fallen long before it physically did."

"you can sit," leon decided, glancing at yixing, "i know your type, you know."

"my type?" yixing asked as he sat down on the patio in front of the small boy.

"yeah, your type," leon replied, "handsome. blessed with good looks, with height, charm. captain of the football team, dates the head cheer leader. the one who's into clichés and such."

"kid, you don't know shit about me," yixing said, "but i bet you think you do, huh?"

leon looked up, tad surprised that yixing had cursed in front of him. no one ever did. no one ever talked to him, let alone curse in front of him.

"don't play," leon responded, "i know your type. i've met your type."

"oh, i bet you do. and you know what else i bet? i bet that if i asked you about art, you could give me the summary of every art book ever written. michaelangelo, van gogh, you know a lot about them right? life's work, political aspirations, sexuality, the whole enchilada, huh? but i bet you've never seen the sistine chapel, never looked at that ceiling. never seen an authentic van gogh painting up close. but you know a whole lot about it, eh? you can read. big whoop. you go to school everyone around you can read. they may choose to be idiots and blunder around their time with petty school drama and repeat how badly they wish they were a grown up already, huh? and you may think you know them just by looking at them, cause they ain't shit. they ain't anything special if you dissect it. at the end of the day they're all the same, they went to school as an idiot and they went home as an idiot, they'll graduate as idiots and they'll spend the most of their sorry lives as idiots until they wake up one day and they're fifty and they realize there's more to life than petty school drama and wanting too badly to grow up. believe me, i get it. i was there, kid. i watched all the idiots blunder around their time and beg to grow up. i watched them fall perfectly in sync with society, watched them continued on with their idiocy as they convinced themselves that hey, maybe the captain of the football team likes them or maybe that cheer leader thinks they're cute because they smiled at them in the hallway once. i get it. none of those fools know what it's like to stare at the ceiling of sistine chapel, but guess what, neither do you. none of those idiots know what it's like to drive for the very first time or pay for your own rent for the first time, but neither do you. and so you can continue to sit here, convince yourself that everyone else is an idiot and you can't be bothered to deal with them. but next time you think that, ask yourself how many of those so called idiots are thinking the same thing about you. tell you what. i've never seen the ceiling of the sistine chapel. so right now, i'm one of the idiots. difference is, i know it. people can look at me, label me as captain of the football team. guess what? i was. but i was also a sixteen year old valedictorian of the senior class, and i was too young for any cheerleader to date. so hey, if you wanna sit here and drown out the world, alright fine. i'll respect that. or you could get off your sorry, arrogant ass and i could teach you how to throw a football, cause something tells me you haven't even touched one."

leon stared at yixing.

"i don't think you're one of those idiots," leon said, "you know why? cause my dad has been trying to get me to join football for the past five years of my life. i never agreed."

"you're agreeing now, though," yixing said.

"and how do you suppose you know that?" leon asked, closing his book.

"well, for one, you closed your book. two, you'd be an idiot if you said no, and if there's one thing our type hates being called, it's stupid," yixing said, getting up from the patio. he held his hand out for leon, waiting to see if he would take it. and he did, hand wrapping around yixing's as the elder pulled him up.

"i don't know shit about football," leon said, lip curving into a smile, "isn't that funny? i read and memorized each rule for basically all football games and i still don't know what the fuck to do."

"don't worry, i'll teach you, kid," yixing nodded, ruffling the teenager's hair, "but don't tell your mother i cursed and i let you curse."

—————

"is he some kind of wizard?" leon's mom, aunt rosie, asked, watching yixing show leon how to catch the football and how to throw a spiral.

"he's got a way with kids," junmyeon said, hand falling gently onto his stomach. he wasn't sure about it before, but now he definitely was. he missed his period and his mom had him pee on a pregnancy stick. he was carrying.

"junmyeon, you gotta tell him," sehun said, "lying to him about your period, i mean come on. he's not gonna be mad, and he'd be a great father. look at him out there. he's teaching leon, leon of all teens, how to play football. leon, as in if-you-poke-me-i'll-cut-you-with-a-dull-razor-blade leon. when are you gonna tell him?"

"i- i can't," junmyeon shook his head.

"why not?" minji asked, "it's really very simple. 'yixing, the condom must've broken'. and it's yixing. he's a sugar cube, you've said it yourself. why can't you tell him?"

"because he has a career to focus on," junmyeon said, "a not steady one."

"honey, if money is an issue we can help out with that-" sara started.

"no, auntie, it's not that," junmyeon said, eyes watering, "sehun, if he were to find out i was pregnant, what would he do?"

"he'd drop the whole company thing and get a steady job," sehun answered, voice grave and quiet.

"exactly. guys, he really, really wants this. he loves dancing, he loves what he does. if i were to tell him, he'd become a doctor or something. his company is just barely starting out, it's rocky right now and he knows it's only gonna get harder from here. and if he finds out i'm pregnant with his baby, he's gonna drop it all. i can't let him do that to himself- he'd be happy but he'd be miserable at the same time, always left to wonder what would have happened if this child never did."

"so... what're you gonna do, junmyeon?" minji asked, usual cheer gone, "you're not gonna abort it, are you?"

"no," junmyeon began to cry, "i have to end it. mommy, i don't have a choice. it's his future."

"that's why you started crying when he came in here and kissed you like that?" sara asked. junmyeon nodded.

"you know, we had this conversation before," junmyeon said, wiping his eyes as his mother laid a hand on his back, soothing him, "isn't that fucked? he said if he ever had kids, he'd want a huge family. he'd name his first son anson and his first daughter naeun. and now he can't even know."

junmyeon looked out the window, watching yixing and leon laugh, throwing the football back and forth as the other kids stared in jealousy that the antisocial kid they picked on was now having fun with junmyeon's cool new boyfriend who looked like superman.

"you think he really has a shot to be something special?" sara asked, voice soft, "junmyeon, is this really worth it?"

"if i didn't believe that he'd make it, auntie, i'd have already told him."

and with that, junmyeon broke down in sobs, the aunts shielding the window view in case yixing glanced at it, sehun and minji going to comfort junmyeon. how funny. junmyeon and yixing had the bright spark, the brightest flame that would have continued burning.

how cruel it was that junmyeon had to be the one to blow out the candle.